William Blake and the Age of Aquarius, a stunning new show opened this past week at the Block Museum at Northwestern (Evanston, Illinois). Above is a reproduction of the catalog cover. The exhibition, curated by Northwestern University art professor, Stephen F Eisenman, is a breakthrough exhibit, exploring, for the first time, “the impact of British visionary poet and artist William Blake on a broad range of American artists in the post-World War II period” (notably, (but by no means confined to), Allen Ginsberg and fellow members of the Beat Generation – Allen as promoter and propagandist, conduit and curator, … Read More

Diane Di Prima‘s new book from City Lights – The Poetry Deal is out. We’ve reported before about her recent troubling health difficulties. The emergencies still remain but still the urgency of the work, still the extraordinary achievement of the work. “In The Poetry Deal“, her publishers write, (di) Prima maps out over forty years of San Francisco history, from the culture of the late ‘Sixties, to her grief over her friends’ passing during the AIDS epidemic, to stories of her countercultural colleagues and the rapidly changing environment she has seen take place over the years in (San … Read More

Word just reaches us of the death of Carolyn Cassady.Brian Hassett has the report here.
She died peacefully, with her son, John Allen, there, in attendance, close beside her. “She was her regular rockin self”, he (Hassett) reports, “up through Sunday, woke up with a tummy ache Monday morning, had an infected appendix and checked out by Friday”…”She was 90 years old and still drank her white wine and smoked her More menthol ciggies every day. That is to say – she was living the life she chose, on her own terms, in her … Read More